Thorne Dreyer's guests are artist, comedian, and musician Kerry Awn with the Uranium Savages, the historic Austin band that mixes in satirical and slapstick performance art with its rock 'n roll. Kerry is lead vocalist on the show and others performing are Eddy Savage (guitar), John Hadad (guitar), Tom Clarkson (bass), David Novak (drums), David Perkoff (sax), Joe Gee (keyboards), and Charles Ray (guitar), who leads the group in "Make Austin Great Again."
Kerry and the band perform several songs live and tell great stories about the early days of the Savages (more than one involving the police!) and the Austin music scene in the '70s and beyond.
Kerry Awn is a painter and muralist whose cartoon art was featured prominently in '60s underground newspapers The Rag and Space City! and who was a poster artist for Armadillo World Headquarters and other prominent music venues. Kerry was a featured performer with the famed sketch comedy group, Esther's Follies, and was a stand-up comic who was named the Funniest Person in Austin. His mural, "Austintatious," on the UT drag, is an important part of Austin history. Kerry was elected to the Austin Arts Hall of Fame.
Kerry is the leader of the wild and crazy comedic rock 'n roll band, the Uranium Savages. Founded in 1974, the Savages have been keeping Austin weird ever since. They call themselves a "comedy, rock, punk, cosmic cowboy band," and claim they are "the band too dumb to die." The Savages' new CD is called Clown Juice and it was produced by Shawn Sahm. The Uranium Savages at the KOOP studios in Austin, Sept. 1, 2017. Seated is Houston Astros shirt is Kerry Awn; Standing on the right is Rag Radio host Thorne Dreyer. Photo by Roger Baker.Rag Radio is produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, an all-volunteer, cooperatively-run, solar-powered community radio station in Austin, Texas, in association with The Rag Blog and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The host and producer of Rag Radio, Thorne Dreyer, is a prominent Austin-based activist and writer who was a pioneer of the ’60s underground press movement. The show’s engineer and co-producer is Tracey Schulz and the staff photographer is Roger Baker. The syndicated show is broadcast (and streamed) live Fridays, 2-3 p.m. (Central) on KOOP, and is later rebroadcast and streamed on WFTE-FM in Mt. Cobb and Scranton, PA., on Houston Pacifica's KPFT HD-3 90.1, and by KKRN, 88.5-FM in Round Mountain, CA -- and as a featured podcast at Veterans Today Live.